1970 Yenko Deuce - Insurance Beater

The factors that brought about the end of the first muscle car era are well known to enthusiasts. By 1970, the insurance industry was tired of paying claims caused by big engines in fast cars and was clamoring for less power. The gas crunch a couple years later did what the regulators couldn't, hitting people in the wallet on a daily basis instead of demanding high insurance premiums a few times a year.

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It can be debated whether the might of the Big Three (and AMC) caved in to the insurance regulators and curtailed their high-performance offerings, or whether the economy and gas prices forced the change. In reality, neither alone was the knockout punch, but the two combined did the deed.

3/8Ronald Normann's Yenko Deuce was among the last batch of Deuces to come from Yenko Sportscars. These last 10 cars were painted Sunflower Yellow, and five of them are known to still exist.

At the height of the muscle car era, several dealerships made money by targeting performance enthusiasts. Tasca, Mr. Norm, Royal Pontiac, and plenty of others took a factory performance package, put the wrenches to it, and sold a high-performance offering to hot rodders. The Yenko dealership in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, was one such Chevrolet outlet. It worked with a nationwide dealer network to put specially equipped Camaros, Chevelles, Novas, a Corvette or two, and a whole bunch of Corvairs in the hands of eager customers.

Yet Don Yenko and his crew did their job so well that by the end of 1969, customers found it increasingly hard to insure their Yenko-powered cars. So for 1970 Yenko went in the opposite direction. Out were the performance-tuned 427 big-blocks, in was the new, solid-lifter, 350-inch LT-1. The motor was rated at 370 hp in the Corvette, but setting it into a Camaro or Nova dropped that factory rating to 360 hp. In a Yenko Nova, it was marketed as the Insurance Beater.

4/8The only interior more basic than the Yenko Nova's -- rubber floor mats, bench seat, AM radio -- was a pickup truck's. Ronald used all original GM parts for the interior restoration.

Insurance regulators took one look at the Nova, typically a bottom-rung economy car, saw the small-block engine, and thought, "Grandma's go-to-meeting car." But Yenko saw it another way: He took the hottest small-block Chevy had offered in years and put it in the lightest body in the Chevrolet line. Yenko started the year with 125 Novas and ordered 50 more midyear to meet the demand: 122 four-speed and 53 automatic Yenko Deuces were built.

According to Ronald Normann, the last 10 cars of that second batch were painted Sunflower Yellow, a color that wasn't previously available. Of those 10, five have been located: One is still in the original owner's garage, three are project cars, and Ronald's, the car you see here, is restored. Ronald said, "My Nova was dealer traded from Hult Chevrolet in Madison, Wisconsin, to Dale Chevrolet in Waukesha, where it was sold new. As far as I know, I'm the fifth owner."

5/8The hood-mounted tach, reminiscent of those found on the Buick GS and Judge GTO, was provided for Yenko by Dixco.

We photographed Ronald's Yenko Deuce at the 2010 Forge Invitational muscle car show. "My goal was to own one Yenko of every year," he said. "I had a Camaro and a Chevelle, so the Nova was the next piece in the puzzle. I also wanted a Yenko they only made a few of."

Twelve years ago his search lead him to this car, though it wasn't in this condition. It, too, was someone's project. "It was in nice shape," Ronald said. "It was apart, and the car had already been media blasted."

6/8While the LT-1 flew under the insurance radar, bold callouts on the hood were right in their face.

Ronald restored the car over the next five years, "off and on," using N.O.S. and original parts. The original subframe was rebuilt using GM parts, including all bushings, coil springs, and spiral shocks, along with the original steering box, sway bars, and front discs. Out back, a set of fresh GM springs and spiral shocks hang the original Yenko/COPO 12-bolt Posi rear, filled with 4.10 cogs since leaving Yenko's shop. Original American Racing 200 Daisy wheels and Goodyear Wide Ovals are at each corner.

While the car was in pretty good overall shape, it was still a Wisconsin car and had rust issues. A set of N.O.S. GM quarter-panels was installed by Mike Slaughter in Brighton, Colorado, and then shot in the car's original Sunflower Yellow hue.

Sticking to Ronald's plan of originality, the bench-seat interior is all genuine GM, with no reproduction parts used. What couldn't be reused from the boxes of original parts that came with the car was replaced with pieces from McHenry Classic Car Parts, while the instrument cluster was restored by Redline Gauge Service in Tennessee.

The heart of the Yenko Deuce is the 360-horse LT-1 four-bolt 350 engine, the same model found in the '70 Z/28 Camaro, with 11:1 compression, solid-lifter cam, and Holley 780-cfm carb on a factory aluminum intake manifold. As with the rest of the car, Ronald rebuilt it to stock specs. Manual transmission models came with an M21 four-speed and Hurst shifter poking through the rubber floor mat, with a hood-mounted tach to remind the driver of those 4.10 gears.

8/8he LT-1 featured solid lifters, 11:1 compression, a 780-cfm Holley carb, and a dual-snorkel air cleaner. The engine was good for 360 hp in a Yenko Nova or Z/28 Camaro, and 370 hp in a Corvette. Power disc brakes came with the package.

Going by raw numbers, the Yenko Deuce was one of the most popular of the high-performance offerings from Yenko Sportscars. We're not sure if that's because of its lower price (helped by the fact that the base bench-seat/rubber-mat Nova cost less than the higher line Camaro and Chevelle), the hot small-block that made the car more nimble than its larger brothers, or the fact that it truly was an insurance beater. But after three years of publicity for churning out high-performance muscle car combinations, the '70 Yenko Deuce was the zenith of Yenko Sportscars, and Ronald Normann's is as perfect an example of the breed as you're likely to find.